7 Omens That Herald the Dark Night of the Soul

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest Souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars. – Khalil Gibran

Although we are all born with Souls, not all of us know how to fully embody them and integrate them into our human experience. The truth is that in our modern world, we live Ego-centrically rather than Soul-centrically.

Mystics, saints, and shamans throughout history have referred to our struggle as humans in different ways – but they all pointed to the need for us to consciously grow into our divine potential.

One of these people was Saint John of the Cross, a Spanish monk who coined the term “Dark Night of the Soul” (“Noche Oscura” the name of one of his poems) based on his own mystical experience.

These days, the concept of the Dark Night of the Soul has come to be used in a much broader way. What was once a term reserved for people actively going through a Spiritual Journey, now has come to easily label anything ranging from a few bad days and a period of depression to the death of a loved one.

But what really is the Dark Night of the Soul?

First, we’ll start with a basic definition:

What is the Dark Night of the Soul?

The Dark Night of the Soul is a period of utter spiritual desolation, disconnection, and emptiness in which one feels totally separated from the Divine. Those who experience the Dark Night feel completely lost, hopeless, and consumed with melancholy. The Dark Night of the Soul can be likened to severe spiritual depression.

7 Omens That Herald the Dark Night of the Soul

I am a forest, and a night of dark trees: but he who is not afraid of my darkness, will find banks full of roses under my cypresses. – Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

“What’s the difference between the dark night and depression?” you may still wonder.

Even back in the 16th century, Saint John of the Cross himself was at great pains to distinguish the Dark Night from mere melancholia (depression).

After all, the symptoms of the Dark Night of the Soul are not that different from depression. But while depression is psychological/neurological/biological, the Dark Night heralds a deeply occurring change within known as spiritual transformation.

Here are 7 “omens” that you might be going through a Dark Night of the Soul:

You feel a deep sense of sadness, which often verges on despair (this sadness is often triggered by the state of your life, humanity, and/or the world as a whole)

You feel an acute sense of unworthiness

You have the constant feeling of being lost or “condemned” to a life of suffering or emptiness

You possess a painful feeling of powerlessness and hopelessness

Your will and self-control is weakened, making it difficult for you to act

You lack interest and find no joy in things that once excited you

You crave for the loss of something intangible; a longing for a distant place or to “return home” again

The ultimate difference between depression and the Dark Night of the Soul is that depression is usually self-centric, whereas the Dark Night is philosophical in nature and is accompanied by existential reflections such as “Why am I here?” and “What is my purpose?”

Also, when depression ends, not much changes in your life in terms of your beliefs, values, and habits. However, when the Dark Night of the Soul ends, everything in your life is transformed, and life becomes wondrous again.

Why Suffering is Necessary

My desire to live is as intense as ever, and though my heart is broken, hearts are made to be broken: that is why God sends sorrow into the world … To me, suffering seems now a sacramental thing, that makes those whom it touches holy … any materialism in life coarsens the soul. – Oscar Wilde “Letters“

Polish psychologist Kazimierz Dąbrowski coined a term Positive disintegration which views tension and anxiety as necessary in the process of spiritual and psychological maturing. In other words, it is the friction within us that causes the mirror of our Souls to be polished enough for us to glimpse our True Nature.

I often hear people speak of the Dark Night as some kind problem they have to “fix,” or something they “went through a long time ago, that is now over, thank God.” But what these people thought was a Dark Night may have just been a glimpse of the darkness within them, especially when they speak egotistically about it as if it were a badge of honor.

A true Dark Night of the Soul leaves a long-lasting impact on you – it changes you completely. When you exit a Dark Night, you will discover that something is always taken away from you (for the better), such as your beliefs, your perceptions, your former meaning in life, or even in rare cases, your ego. The metaphysician Ananda Coomaraswamy put it this way, “No creature can attain a higher grade of nature without ceasing to exist.”

Have you ever seen a butterfly begin to emerge from its cocoon? It must struggle in order to strengthen its wings. If someone frees the butterfly from its cocoon prematurely, it won’t be able to fly because its crucial tempering stage will not have occurred.

The same is true for trees. Trees need wind in order to build their structural strength to stay upright.

Your Dark Night of the Soul is your wind, your cocoon; it is the struggle of shedding the Ego Self that helps you to embody your Soul Self.

If you try to avoid the hard work of, as Ananda put it, “ceasing to exist,” or breaking down your old confining structures, you won’t have what it takes to truly embody your essential nature.

The Dark Night and The Spiritual Awakening Process

As humans, the prospect of change is avoided and resisted because it is unknown territory. Therefore, we fear it. For this reason, we require a Spiritual Awakening.

There are three ways that Spiritual Awakenings can occur: the first is at the hands of wise spiritual teachers, the second is through the spiritual drive of soulfully mature people, and the third is spontaneously due to life experience.

Spontaneous awakenings arrive in a number of ways: a terminal diagnosis, old age, a near-death experience, a physical accident, the loss of a loved one, a romantic breakup, the destruction of your home or homeland, suicidal depression, or the complete loss of your religious faith.

The Dark Night is a herald, an omen, of change. It lets us know that we can’t continue living the way we have been living. There is no growth, no awakening in life, to life, without first seeing and acknowledging our existing disappointment.

Acknowledging our disappointment means becoming aware of the deeply held sense of “incompletion” that we all carry; it means becoming aware that something is desperately missing from our lives. Those that have experienced, or are currently experiencing a Dark Night of the Soul will know that something very fundamental at a core level is out of focus or completely lacking in their lives. Those going through a Dark Night will sense that so much more is possible in their lives, even though they don’t exactly know what that “so much more” is.

One of the common reasons why Dark Nights occur and are prolonged is due to mystical experiences, or short glimpses of the divine, which spiritual teachers often refer to as “grace” or samādhi. Soon afterward, the person “loses” this experience, and is plunged into unhappiness again. This is called the “halo effect,” “afterglow” or what the Sufis speak of as the “sobriety of union.”

Why does the “halo effect” happen? It happens because of the stark contrast between one’s rediscovered Divine Self and the return to one’s disconnected and tormented Ego self. To the spiritually mature person, the halo effect sets the stage for a future encounter with the transcendental, with God.

However, for the less prepared seeker, the glimpse into the Divine stirs up even more distress as old habits, obsessions, thoughts, and behaviors reappear. Now, such a person realizes that he has a long, complex, and demanding task of purification and transformation ahead of him.

In Spiritual Alchemy, there is a word for this experience called “solutio”; putting all the hard stuff in the waters of reflection (your ideas, your habits, etc.), where it dissolves and breaks apart, shows itself for what it is, and gives you the opportunity for a fresh start.

The solution to one’s suffering and disconnection from the divine realm can be any method of cutting away, dislodging, disintegrating and clearing old pieces of your life so that you can begin afresh.

Essentially, the Dark night is a process of shedding away your old home and going in search of a new one. Understandably, this process requires a huge leap of faith into the unknown which can come at quite a sudden and frightening pace.

If you think you might be going through this journey, it’s important to understand that many of us have been where you are. Many people still are. There is no map, there is only the flickering luminescence of your Soul to light the way.

Dark Night of the Soul Meditation

While every experience of the Dark Night of the Soul is different, the one common thread is that it is a path of initiation. You are in the dark so that you can understand what Light is. You are disconnected so that you can know what connection is. You are lost so that you can find your way back Home. If these explanations of the Dark Night don’t resonate with you, please go ahead and discard of them. I’m not here to tell you what the Dark Night of the Soul should mean because ultimately you must figure that out for yourself. You need to be the one to make meaning out of your experience. I can only offer my own understanding.

If you have read up until this point you are probably looking for additional help, and that is completely understandable. However, the Dark Night of the Soul is a complex and profound experience and it cannot be solved by reading a “six-step” formula or bullet list. What I can offer you, however, is a simple meditation which may provide you with some level of relief.

When you can dredge up enough energy (I know how exhausting and depleting the Dark Night can be), try experimenting with the following Dark Night of the Soul meditation:

Find a quiet and undisturbed place. If you like, play some celestial or ethereal music in the background to set the mood. Lie down and close your eyes. For a minute or two focus on your breath. Feel your chest rise and fall. Once you feel connected with your body, shift your focus to creating an image of yourself walking through a dark forest. Imagine that you are looking above to see the dark tangled branches of the forest obscure the sky. What does the forest feel like? Is it cold, hot, balmy, humid or icy? Can you smell, feel or taste anything?

As you keep walking through the dark forest, the path in front of you seems endless. The atmosphere feels deathly and melancholic. Suddenly, a white wolf emerges from the trees. It looks at you with intelligent and kind eyes and begins to accompany you as you walk. Your feeling of loneliness lifts slightly as you enjoy the company of your animal friend. Suddenly, the wolf beside you stops and stares intensely into the dark trees ahead of you. You peer ahead but cannot see anything but dark shadows. Suddenly, your wolf companion lifts up his head and lets out a loud and haunting wolf call.

The hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Just after the wolf stops howling, a white light slowly emerges from deep within the forest. At first, the light is tiny and like a pinprick. But as you walk towards it, the light becomes bigger and brighter. A feeling of hope begins to fill you. Tentatively, you start jogging towards the light. You notice that the faster you run, the bigger the light gets. The closer you move to the light, the more open and expansive you feel. You pick up your pace. The feeling is exhilarating! Far behind you, the white wolf howls again. A feeling of wildness and freedom starts to warm you from the inside out. As you continue running, the light begins to consume your vision. The dark forest begins to quickly fade. As you look down, you notice that your legs are the legs of a wolf – without knowing it, you have experienced a total transformation – and it is liberating! Picking up your pace, you keep running and you let out a loud howl. The piercing sound of the howl dissolves all hopelessness, sadness, and darkness left within you. The howl has completely purified you. All that remains is pure light, love, hope, power, and peace. You feel spacious and open. You are free!

Enjoy the feeling of freedom for as long as you wish. When you are ready, wiggle your fingers and toes and return back to the room. You may like to journal about your experience.

Feel free to record this visualization, get someone to read it out to you gently, or change the meditation to your own liking. It has been created to ultimately benefit you.

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About Mateo Sol

Mateo Sol is a prominent psychospiritual counselor and mentor whose work has influenced the lives of thousands of people worldwide. Born into a family with a history of drug addiction, schizophrenia, and mental illness, Mateo Sol was taught about the plight of the human condition from a young age. As a spiritual counselor and mentor, Sol’s mission is to help others experience freedom, wholeness, and peace in any stage of life. [Read More]

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It started after the death if my entire family, followed by endometriosis that causes chronic pain and diabetes, finding out I can never have kids again, several abusive relationships, financial stress, and being disowned by my abusive parents. All of these things seemed to break me. I really felt there was no point to living and everything was sure to fail for me. I didn’t even feel sorry for myself, I just felt negative, hopeless, exhausted, and numb. I had no hope and stopped making plans or goals. I focused on my own death a lot even though I wasn’t suicidal. I was sure I would die a terrible death with much suffering after a long life of suffering. In many ways I’m still going through this but I decided to go back to school and finish my degree to finally change the financial issues I faced and the low level jobs I hated so much. That has given me hope and a plan. I actually somewhat look forward to the future but the fear it will all be snatched from me still lingers. It’s the result of trauma I’m sure. I just want to help others since I’m a survivor of all this and I can empathize. I also wish to get closer to God because I can tell spirituality is missing from my life and I’ve fallen far from my Maker. There is light but sometimes you have to make you for yourself. :)

I went through a dark night for a solid two years. I completely lost myself during this time. The person I have emerged as is more than I could have ever hoped for. The other night I was crying saying my family doesn’t even know me anymore and my husband replied saying they are the ones missing out. I still feel I have rebirths to go through. I don’t know where I’m headed but I am at peace with it all the best I can be. For anyone going through this now there is light at the end of the tunnel. It is soft and all encompassing. Just hold on it’s on it’s way. ♥️

I have been so disconnected and spiritually lost that the confusion had caused me to isolate further and close myself off. Except after talking with someone close to me, I actually took in what they were saying and actively listening. Mind you, these are about problems within myself and others where I felt an unending helpless cycle for. It was so simple that the openness of another perspective, listening to myself and others empathetically and responding and not reacting came to me in a rush of understanding. That only if we choose to try to understand ourselves that it opens doors to self development. I have been learning all I can and while this recently occurred I will not give in to my fears. Thank you for reading my view on my awakening to my true self. I seek knowledge yet do not know the way and that’s ok.

I’m glad I encountered this article. I had no idea what a “dark night of the soul” was. Now I can properly “label” my situation. I am a devout Catholic and about 7 years ago, I just lost all urge to pray. I couldn’t understand this. Two priests told me I was having a spiritual drought, that it happens and passes. But I was worried because it’s been 7 years now. A break up I am going through now got my life extra muddled, and I feel everything inside of me is getting a big upheaval. I started meditating which got me back to “feeling” my prayers again. And I’ve been told by an energy healer that I am in a cocoon stage right now, waiting to transform. I can’t wait for the transformation because as you all have experienced, it’s very painful to go through this.

I have a small inspiration card with a quote that says, “Things fall apart so things can fall together.” I’ve been waiting for that “fall together” thing for many years.

I have spent my entire life (I am now 64) working diligently at “personal evolution”. That is, engaging in a lot of introspection and analysis, as well as testing and experimentation, with the goal of improving myself as a human being, of becoming the best version of me. This activity does not allow for development of family-and-friends networks and support systems, so I have often been alone. And that never bothered me. Even when I had to stop working due to disability, I was ok with being alone, most of the time. I still found purpose in my life. Over the last 5 years or so, that has changed; things have slowly fallen apart, and the aloneness is closing in on me. I had a life that I was enjoying (finally!), and little by little, it slipped away. I could not bring it back, no matter how I tried. Recently I felt compelled to move (something I had hoped never to do again), and it turned out to be an “out of the frying pan, into the fire” situation. I have always needed my home to be a haven from the world, a place to feel safe and centered, from which I could go out into the world and come back again at the end of each day. This latest move has denied me that respite. This “home” threatens me on every level, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. I have never felt so bereft. I have never been so completely terrified of my life and circumstances. I never had panic attacks before living in this space. And yet, exiting my front door requires huge amounts of courage, and energy, and strength. I am fearful of everything and completely isolated, leaving me without any signpost or touchstone to guide me, without friends or family to encourage and support, and without meaningful activity or discernable purpose. It is terrifying.

Over the years, while all of this was going on, I have known that something really big, something truly significant, was coming my way. I didn’t know what. I didn’t know when. I have guessed that past difficulties might be that turning point; but with each new challenge, the previous one seems trifling. One illustration of this sense that “something’s coming” is a reading I had several years ago by a palm reader. She looked at my life line and said I would live a long life, because my life line runs off my palm and into my wrist. She also pointed out a place far along the line where another major line cuts across, signifying a major life difficulty, and then a bit further on a place where the life line itself takes an almost 90-degree turn. From the perspective of moving down the life line, it is a left turn. I find that ironic, as my life has certainly taken a “left turn”.

So reading this article now, I find myself fully represented by it. I am in the throes of this “Dark Night of the Soul”. I have had a few glimpses of where I might be going, but the way is tangled and fraught with complications, and I don’t know which way to turn, the best avenue to take. I have taken some actions, which felt absolutely true and necessary at the time. But now I can go no further, and I almost don’t care how things work out. I have a trust, a knowing, that I have done my part and must wait for events to play out in order to know where to go next. This trust is new to me. The ability to wait, without worry and frustration, is also new to me. In a way, life has “worn me down” to the point where I stopped the frenetic activity, the endless searching, and am content to do my part and then simply watch and wait.

I am still in my Dark Night. I don’t know when or how it might end. I do know – and this is an inner certainty, not an intellectual thought – that I will be completely different when I emerge on the other side. I find comfort in that knowing, and greet the changes with wonder and love and humility.

You are a warrior! I too have surrendered on just a knowing. I truly believe from the depth of my soul that 2019 will be a magical year for so many of us that have be patiently waiting for Divine timing. Sending you much love and light

I am experiencing this right now. This year the person I believed to be the love of my life one day just told me they didn’t want to be with me anymore and the next week had someone new who he’s been with ever since. I’ve since discovered that they are my twin flame but the breakup was so painful and brutal I find myself questioning it. Shortly after that my mum phoned me from my home country and told me that she had liver cancer so I had to leave the life I had made and fly home to face my beautiful mother’s death. She passed away just 6 weeks after I came home. We have always been a very spiritual family and she raised me to be very spiritual. Lately I’ve been in total dispair, I feel empty and lost. I can’t meditate and I struggle to believe in spirituality or my own spiritual gifts. I feel like I lost the two people I loved the most in the space of a few months and that they both took things I will never be able to get back. I feel incomplete and I don’t know how to feel while again. I keep being drawn back to “the dark night of the soul” and the feeling that a huge transformation is coming for me, that the tragedy has made way for something huge to emerge in my life.

My travels through the Dark Night(s) of the Soul have been going on in stages throughout the years. This is my 3rd one, and the hardest one so far. It has definitely been heavily influenced by my Twin Flame who I met 18 years ago, but we were both unavailable to each other because of family commitments, obligations, society’s expectations, and perceived obstacles because of our belief systems. The situation got pushed far beyond control as we were conceiving a million scenarios to be together and do what we were supposed to do together without letting go of the situations keeping us apart. In the end I felt I lost every connection to my soul, and couldn’t do it anymore. I had to loose it all to find the way back to myself again. Religious dogma, societies expectations, belief systems that were programmed in my childhood, everything I ever lived by and thought was true was shaken and discarded. My twin flame brought this out in me, and I in him, so for now we are apart. It got to intense for any of us to handle around each other. I’m finding that everything I ever believed in was a lie. That I was fake. Everything around me was fake. It had to go. I pulled away from family, friends, hobbies that used to give me joy, everything got questioned and discarded. I feel lighter. I know my purpose. I’m seeing the beauty in life and it was nothing I thought it would be. My last piece of the puzzle is forgiving myself for being so hard on myself throughout life. That it was all there, all along. Not outside of me, but inside of me. So as I shed the last part of the cocoon holding me from accessing me, I am sending all my love inward to heal my own heart and soul. This is making me light up from the inside again, so that I finally shine my own way out of the darkness, embracing that without the darkness I wouldn’t be able to see the light. And without light, I wouldn’t have seen the darkness. Both in perfect synergy completing myself on my own.

Amanda, I see so much of myself in your comment. I am now a good 3 years into this nightmare and the further I go, the more convinced I have become that “God”is a lie! Believe me I get why the lie is so appealing and why the human ego is so desperate to believe it, I just cant do it anymore. I beat myself up for quite some time afterwards, was insanely angry about how gullible I had been but I can tell you that there is peace of mind and freedom that comes from not having to look for soul paths, or my higher purpose. I really wish I had figured this out earlier instead of letting myself get used and manipulated for 60 years by this concept.

Thank you so much for this. I now believe things will get better. My life has, too , been dark since divorcing over 3 years ago.
Seems as if I am spiraling further down into my depression too. Writing down questions have become the norm for me, because I have been experiencing the halo effect. Terrible fighting going on with my higher self and other energy connections. I thought I had it all figured out, but obviously not yet :)
My soul just wants harmony. I just want peace. Thank you for the insight Mateo, I am positive this too shall pass and I will fly free. Blessings to you.

Thank you Carmen, it may not feel like it but such a deconstructive process is often necessary in order to rebuild oneself we must first make sure the foundation is stable. I’ve learned the hard way that when I feel like I have everything under control it’s often my ego fooling me into a false sense of stability. The greatest truth is that the deeper we go into this, the more freedom we have, but not from a greater sense of control; rather a greater acceptance of our lack of control. :)

I flow in and out of my dark nights of the soul. I no longer fear them, but welcome them and hold them close, respecting their need for solitude and for exploring the depths of authenticity. My experience is that depression is a harbinger of the dark night of the soul, to help us prepare for what is coming. I don’t want to rid myself of my soulful dark night, but rather to accept its lessons and gifts, growing through it for as long as it takes. One dark night took me a decade to grow through; this dark night resulted in an epiphany that changed my life. I am older than most people who read here (7th decade), and after many dark nights, I can be in the darkness with hope and gratitude that I am given this treasure, this box of darkness (per Mary Oliver). Dark nights come and go throughout one’s life. My desire is to blend my light days of joy and my dark nights of the soul into a authentic mystical life so that dark nights and light days are both experienced with equal reverence and peace. Truly, I love the darkness as I love the light.

My desire is to blend my light days of joy and my dark nights of the soul into a authentic mystical life so that dark nights and light days are both experienced with equal reverence and peace. Truly, I love the darkness as I love the light.

Thank you for the astute article on the dark night.
The Dark Night of my soul began about 3 years aftet a divorce . I’d come to realize how deeply hopeless I’d become and turned to a God of my understanding and totally surrendered. Oddly the ‘night’ lasted about nine months and when I emerged on the other side I’d lost the driveness that had propelled me through life. I had no idea how to function without that driveness so I did the only thing I could do.. I began. That is what I’ve been doing since then.., beginning!

That’s such a great way to express it. The moment of transformation in the dark night comes by shifting our centers; from a ‘driving force’ perception of time, to an unfolding of eternal present moments where each moment is a new beginning. Thank you Suzy

I have been experiencing the Dark Night of the Soul for about 12 years now. I’ve been treated for clinical depression and diagnosed with PTSD, but it’s really the state of the world, my country (U.S.) and my current lack of connection to my higher Self and Nature that causes me unrelenting distress. So many things have happened to me that I finally just broke. But in that brokenness I can sense something else, a loss I cannot name, as you mentioned in the article. Even so, I sometimes see myself as a luminous being, pure energy and expansive. I also have “mystical experiences”, always in Nature. These occur, for example, while listening to the wind as it moves through the trees, or watching the grass undulate on a windy day and hearing the gentle music of the chimes on my patio. Sometimes I go outside at dusk and feel a presence, silently watching me. And then I spot the whitetail deer standing at the edge of the forest behind my home, looking directly at me but unafraid.
One day I had a fox visit my patio. They are not common here anymore. He stayed on the grass but again, was looking at me as if to tell me something. I also had a toad make frequent visits to the same patio, spending much of the night just resting on a low ledge in front of the furnace room door. He also was unafraid, and just watched as I passed by him to take my dog for walkies. All of these experiences might sound mundane but it’s the feeling I get from them that renders them profound, to me.
I love the wolf and forest meditation, and it’s close to one I do fairly regularly, in which I am running with a pack of wolves through the moonlit forest. And yet, after all these years, I still have not emerged from my Dark Night of the Soul. I’m not sure what to do, as the hopelessness, lack of interest in life and the pain I feel from this world is all-encompassing. I wish I knew how to get through it because it is exhausting.

Fenris: I sensed something from your comment and felt compelled to reply. I know it’s truly difficult within today’s “interesting” world to maintain balance within and to truly believe that our world is finally on the path of peace and harmony. Your connection to Nature and her creatures perhaps are also trying to connect to you! To show you love and acceptance (because maybe that’s tough for you to do for you?), for you to feel grounded and open to RECEIVING the (everflowing) energy that you need and DESERVE to live this life. I too have difficulties at times receiving (and other things too, but that’s ok!) As an empath, I guess I just wanted you to know that it’s ok. I may not know you, but you do..trust yourself, ask yourself what may be helping or hindering your transformation..or if that in itself is what it is..be friends with your body and be open to any info that might come forth. You get to decide. New can be scary..or exciting..perspective holds the key. Smile! Say hi to the forest for me and enjoy being you!

Speaks to me…I have lost interest in the world full stop. I have been banished from my family…I can’t relate to my friends like I did…I want to do something meaningful but am too exhausted…I go for a walk with my cat before dawn breaks so I can enjoy her company. ..right now it’s just me and my cat…I have just been for an appointment at work re finishing due to illness..my whole life has fallen apart and yet I just know there is a reason for all of this. ..I am working on forgiveness and my perspectives setting my family free so I can be free to get on with my soul journey. …love the meditation…I live near woods so I could feel the atmosphere and will think of that when I walk with my cat . Thank you.

Well that was a pretty accurate description of what I have been going through over the last few months. I always though of a dark night of the soul to be an intense experience over a day or two. Mine seems to be carrying on and on, and I’ve begun to wonder if I’m missing the message. Today would be a good example: recent difficulties with my sewage ejection system (I live in the country) has left me wondering if I will ever sort it out. Generally I feel flat, colorless, not motivated by all the things I used to love doing or by things that need to be done. I’m napping like a little kid when I can manage. Then I go to work and wonder how I will be effective when I feel like this. But for some reason, when I finish my afternoon session (I work with children) I feel elated on the drive home for no apparent reason. The day before, I struggle to connect speakers to a CD player I finally got for myself. Not super high end equipment, but I’m grateful to have found a way to have music in my life at home again. Everything works and I’m completely taken by the music for a while. Then I remember all the chores waiting to be done and slowly sink back into a flat landscape or a state of nervous tension. Sometimes theses states last for a few days each and then something will pull me out for a brief respite – usually some aspect of nature, like my cats, or the pattern of tree branches against the sky, or the STARS! One night I saw two falling stars together and felt like it was a touch of divine source. Anyway, just my ramblings.
I found Amanda’s emergence into greyness kind of interesting. Does this happen when we feel that nothing is really important, or that one thing is the same as every other thing? And is this what happens before we break through the energies that I have read are blanketing our planet to keep us from moving into higher realms of existence? I realize that this idea may be somewhat controversial. Thank you for an excellent discussion of this. It all makes sense to me.

Hi Mateo… I read aloud, “Please share below to help others not feel so alone.” I better comment about it. Here often I sit alone while family and friends are around. I don’t mean ignore them but none of them are interested about it. I would know what I could see but I could not do. I don’t have skills, time and even money to develop a movie. That’s why I seek any alternative way to start up. I still thank you, Mateo anyway.

This time of year can be especially difficult for those who are emerging from this cocoon that is the Dark Night of the Soul. It’s a strange period because those who are meant to be our support network of family/friends were found prior to our deeper desire to explore our selves. As this new self starts emerging, the old connections don’t quite understand as they can only see you as the old self you were when you met them. It’s important to find a group who can support and empathize this aspect of your journey. We hope to provide at the very least, a virtual space that achieves that. All the best brother.

It seems from your article that my own Dark Night of the Soul was actually nothing more or less than clinical depression. I spent 2 years of my life feeling empty, utterly devoid of hope and wondering what on earth the point of it all was, but I didn’t experience anything mystical or spiritual, and I certainly didn’t emerge transformed. At least, not for the better. Whilst I’m hugely relieved that the oppressive dark cloud finally lifted and my energy and appetite eventually returned, I have been left a more morose, cynical version of my former self. Having experienced the dark, I am not more grateful for the light – if anything, I now live in perpetual greyness. In order to move past, or beyond, the situations that lead to the depression, I felt motivated enough to make decisions regarding changing my life, but it’s years later and those changes haven’t manifested. I’m just as stuck as I’ve always been. And the endless disappointments of life threaten to drag me down again. If only it HAD been a transformational process! I feel for anyone going through dark times. I hope there’s light ahead for you.

Thank you for sharing your struggle. I think you raise an important point that is the distinction between the dark night and depression. The main distinction I’ve noticed in our work is that it’s as if the depression of the Dark Night had a “higher” or “purgatorial” or “intelligent” purpose – and this, of course, is exactly the claim of contemplatives. This can be attested to by the dark night of the soul literature containing virtually no cases of it leading to suicide (in sharp contrast to existential or borderline depressions, for example).

I’m sorry you’re experience wasn’t one of purging. This doesn’t mean though that it’s not still possible, perhaps one way out of the ‘grey’ area you mention is to pursue a transpersonal element in your path. It’s only by experiencing ‘numinous’ states that we can taste what is possible and ultimately also the burden that is living from the center of the individual ‘self’.

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About Us

Walk the path less traveled

Our names are Aletheia Luna and Mateo Sol and we currently live in Perth, Western Australia.

Our mission is to help others embrace the path of the lone wolf and listen to the soul’s calling. Our goal is to provide a grounded and balanced perspective of spirituality that doesn’t bypass the raw, real, and messy aspects of spiritual growth or psychological development.

We are deeply drawn to exploring and exposing both the light and shadow side of human nature and spirituality. We strive towards integration, balance, wholeness, and embracing both the sacred and wild aspects of being human. Read more.